Since our nation is still fully infected with World Cup fever, soccer jokes were inevitable at last night's ESPY Awards. Thankfully it fell to Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg and the "SNL" scribes to make us laugh since Seth Meyers hosted the 2010 ceremony. For Will's schtick, he emerged as Jeff Vuvuzela, creator of the worst noisemaker since Kate Gosselin. Watch!Michael Caulfield/WireImage.com

Beverly Hills — I am out in the far reaches of our Western frontier. A strange land peopled by different beings who look differently, eat differently, talk differently, dress differently.

Grass and alfalfa is a main dish. Everyone’s inseam measures at minimum 43 inches. If you’re not blond, you’re not trying. Any female wearing a neckline up to her neckline is avoided because she obviously has a sore throat. All young ladies punctuate sentences with “like,” as in, “So he’s, like, coming onto me” . . . “So it was, like, I said to him . . .”

And nobody walks. Anyone walking in Beverly Hills’ residential district is arrested on sight.

I know the Golden State is beautiful. It has big redwoods and Santa Barbara and San Francisco and the Pacific Coast Highway and reasonable weather. But who cares? It also has Californians. At birth, upon coming into this world, the first sounds these creatures utter are “BMW.” Their designer diapers are chamois. Loaned, of course.

Ties are forbidden. Any gentleman caught wearing one risks being committed and sentenced to maybe three months in a place like Idaho. Socks also show you’re small-time. Forget athlete’s foot or fungus, no self-respecting producer (and how’s that for an oxymoron) would be caught wearing socks. He’d lose his standing. He might also lose his athlete’s foot and fungus.

This is the annual rite of passage called Academy Awards weekend — Vanity Fair’s party, Elton John‘s annual AIDS fund-raiser, the Independent Spirit Awards. JetBlue is the modern version of the covered wagon.

No more pots and pans clanking inside wagon trains as our frontier brethren and sistren and cousinren crossed these wild lands plodding Westward Ho. Now on board it’s no water, no scissors, no underarm spray. I guess the thought is if bin Laden can smell, so can we. And what’s JetBlue’s seat-back TV play on the flight out West? Broadway, Fashion Week, sights of NYC.

The famous shopping streets are empty. Fortunately, Canon Drive’s new Montage hotel draws activity with guests like Harvey Weinstein and Judge Judy. Director in Chief is Alik Kasikci, formerly GM of The Peninsula Beverly Hills. His Joe Biden equivalent, longtime New Yorker Frank Bowling, used to be GM of NYC’s Carlyle. Even without their baby grands in suites, The Montage is as New York as you can get in glorious downtown Schwarzeneggerville. And you think our governor should resign?

Now, Friday’s 25th Independent Spirit Awards. Take the beautiful table of Larry Boland, president of Piaget North America, the major sponsor. Mena Suvari, Taraji P. Henson, Emmy Rossum, Rosario Dawson, Alan Cumming — and me. To our right, Mariah Carey with her giant diamond bracelets, rings, earrings and whatever else she might’ve schlepped in her handbag because she didn’t want to overdress — especially since she was sitting with Lionel Richie, who was casual. Table to our left, Matt Dillon, Ethan Hawke.

Nicest dude there: Jeff Bridges. Signed autographs for everyone. Almost hit by a car because he was in the road posing for photos.

Most self-important dude: “Precious” director Lee Daniels, who strode past in a whoosh. Even Richie asked, “Hey, anybody see Lee Daniels? I’m trying to get hold of him.”

Nicest fellow to win the Independent Spirit Award: “Precious” screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, who brought his schoolteacher-mom to meet everyone and explained his inspiration: “We’ve all known abuse in some way. We’ve all had hopes and know how hard it is to break out — and break in.”

And gorgeous Dawson in short short beige gray lace. “It’s Stella McCartney,” she said. “I only tried it on two hours ago.”

It was a bitterly cold night for Southern California. Many men wore jeans. Almost every female wore thigh-high, low back, low front, no sides and bare feet in spikes. With some teeny little nonsense thin wrap. And it was freezing.

The majority were in black. One semi-famous face wore blue. She said: “It’s not blue. That’s me. I’m really shivering.”

And there’s a large lack of taste. Like a lady in a bright green dress. With a bright red coat? Shorter than her dress?

I would actually consider it my charitable duty to stay here and straighten them all out. But I have no time. I’m flying home tomorrow.